In case you're interested, you'll find the whole "Flame Rider" series and the other photos taken on that day here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/post/western-green-lizards-in-t...

(above): WESTERN GREEN LIZARD (LACERTA BILINEATA) | ADULT FEMALE ON TRUMPET VINE | 09-2023 | TICINO | SWITZERLAND

More Ticino/Tessin Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): de.lacerta-bilineata.com/westliche-smaragdeidechse-lacert...

And my most recent BIRD VIDEO (a goldfinch invasion in my garden) you can find here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvVNEYPfFtU

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
The shot above was for once NOT taken in my garden, but instead I captured this "lady of the flame" last September in the Maggia Valley - named after the river Maggia - which also lies in Ticino, but approximately at an hour's drive from my house in Monteggio.

I had been invited there by my good friend Evie who spends a lot of time in that gorgeous natural paradise, completely off grid in a little "rustico" (that's what the ancient, traditionally built stone houses are called in Ticino). She and I have known each other since we were toddlers, and she's as much a nature nerd and photo nut as I am, so I was very much looking forward to a day of exploring this beautiful valley with a fellow wildlife paparazzo.

Around 9am I got off the bus and strolled head-on into the marvelous wilderness where my friend had instructed me to. Evie had offered to come get me at the bus stop, but I assured her it would be a piece of cake for me to find the place on my own; the rustico was only approximately 20 minutes away in the forest, and her directions sounded easy enough. But she insisted I call her once I reached a small clearing in the woods so she could come and fetch me, because there was supposed to be a hidden shortcut from there to the house.

Like in most men - and I'm sure ALL women know this about us - there lives a stubborn little boy inside my head that fancies himself the ultimate survival expert and never wants to rely on anybody else's directions (I call that fella "Jungle-Mike" 😉 ), so I had memorized a satellite image of the area beforehand, and I now felt confident enough to leave the trail and head straight for the river through the woods - and instantly got lost. 😂

But of course, Mr Survival Expert was too absorbed with his (mis-) adventure in the underbrush to realize he was heading in the wrong direction: an army of brambles was more than happy to welcome such a worthy adversary as was good ole' "Jungle Mike" and drew first blood immediately, but I fought back bravely and heroically escaped their thorny clutches to make it - though not exactly unscathed - to the river bank.😅

So far, my trip was a complete success: I had found the Maggia river, which had been my goal after all (as I said: "piece of cake" 😁 ). Now all I needed to do was get across. If I had been smart enough to follow Evie's instructions, I would have come to a bridge (the satellite photo had corroborated that), but in my valiant struggle against the undergrowth I had ended up much further downstream than intended, and there was no bridge to be seen.

A decision had to be made. Calling my friend and simply asking for new directions never crossed my mind ("Jungle-Mike don't phone!"), nor did I want to waste more time by walking upstream in search of the bridge. Instead I took off my shoes and waded into the shallow looking river, praying the current wouldn't get too strong and my expensive camera gear wouldn't take a plunge.

Thankfully, this was a stretch of the Maggia where the water never got more than knee-deep, but the ground was very uneven as well as slippery, and the current DID get pretty strong. I wobbled through the stream like a drunk duck, desperately trying not to slip on the algae-covered stones or lose my balance. It must have looked very comical to any outside observers (and "Jungle-Mike" was very pleased there were none of those around 😉 ).

I made it to the other side without sacrificing any of my belongings to the river gods, but my feet were now wet, and I had to continue my journey into the woods barefoot for a while. This meant I had to concentrate hard and scan the ground before every step, because this was chestnut country, and let me tell you: collecting chestnut spines with one's soft, rosy feet is about as much fun as stepping on a sea urchin!

It couldn't have been more than 20 minutes since I had left the bus stop, but I was already sweating profusely from sheer exertion, when I finally found the meadow where I was supposed to call my friend (it had to be the right clearing, since I was sure I hadn't seen any other open spaces in the forest on the satellite photo).

I dialed her number, and she answered immediately. 3 Minutes later Evie materialized out of the trees like a kind forest spirit that had come to rescue me. Of course I did my best not to show how relieved I was to see her. "Was it easy to find?" she asked as we walked up the trail to the house. "Piece of cake," Jungle-Mike answered. 😜

The rustico stood in the midst of little meadow, surrounded by gorgeous old oak and chestnut trees. It had a few small solar panels on the roof that powered some lights and a tiny fridge, but heating and cooking were only possible with firewood, and the water came from a nearby spring. A shower or bathtub wasn't needed: the Maggia river provided for that.

After a hard-earned cup of coffee - "Savor it," Evie said, "I had to work for half an hour for that, and it will take me another half hour to make another one" - we finally got going. Evie led the way; I tried my best to keep up with her pace as she gracefully darted through the woods, until she stopped when we arrived at a narrow hiking trail. "This is the best part," she proclaimed, "I always wanted to show you this: there's lots of your favorite lizards along this stretch of the trail."

The path she had chosen led us through the magnificent wilderness of the Maggia valley, but every once in a while a derelict rustico or parts of a stone wall of some ancient enclosure for goats or sheep would appear on either side of the way - remnants of a long gone era when all of this was farm land. And my friend was right: my favorite reptiles - the western green lizards (Lacerta bilineata) - apparently thrived here!

Every couple of meters we were greeted by yet another impressive green fella basking on the warm stones (the sky was overcast, but we could feel the heat of the still powerful September sun coming through the clouds), and every single one of the reptiles would be announced in advance by Evie. "Watch out, there's usually a big one right there," she would say, or: "Slow down a bit, the one that normally sits on that wall behind the next curve is a little shy."

Western green lizards are very territorial and can often be found in the same spots, and so Evie had begun to give some of them names as if they were her pets: "The fella we're about to see on that rock over there has a partially regrown tail; I call him 'Stummeli'," (which means "stunted" in Swiss German); "He never takes flight, and you can practically touch him."

I was indeed struck by the fact that many of the lizards here showed little to no fear when we approached them - which was in stark contrast to the Lacerta bilineata population in my own village - and my camera got so busy that I feared the shutter would start to glow and throw sparks! 😊

It was an incredible trip, and I can honestly say without exaggeration that this part of the Maggia Valley was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever visited. And never have I seen so many western green lizards within such a short a period of time as I did during that hike! Mating season was over, so the males lacked the intense blue facial colors they usually display from April to June, but they still looked absolutely amazing.

The highlight of our little expedition - at least for me since Evie had already been here countless times - was when we got to a cluster of abandoned rustici in the midst of the forest. It might have been a village once; now the crumbling stone buildings were overgrown by grapevines that had escaped an ancient vineyard, and awkwardly bent apple trees that were covered in lichen and moss grew between the sunken ruins.

These veterans were probably the last descendants of the trees that once grew in a long since disappeared orchard; there was also a huge fig tree growing out of a collapsed house - and it was carrying plenty of fruit, which didn't go unnoticed by my now growling stomach.

Evie and I quickly descended upon the figs - which were sweet and juicy - and I couldn't help but think of "Hansel and Gretel" feasting on the wicked witch's gingerbread house. The whole scenery indeed looked like something straight out of a fairy tale - or a fantasy novel like 'Lord of the Rings'. And it was here, in this magical place, that I captured the "flame rider" you can see in the photo above.

The hungry lizard lady was looking for six-legged treats in a gorgeous trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) that grew over the roof of one of the ruins; the image above shows her right before she dove into the flaming orange flower to get at whatever bug she had spotted inside. She buried her head completely in the flower, which I thought looked very funny (if you're interested, you can find those photos here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/post/western-green-lizards-in-t... )

What else is there to say (unsurprisingly, this anecdote has once again gotten much longer than I intended 😄 ); I guess you can tell by my rambling that, my initial "detour" not withstanding, visiting my friend in the Maggia Valley was a fantastic experience. I certainly hope to return there soon (and who knows, maybe next time I'll even manage to leave "Jungle-Mike" at home 😉 ).

Thanks for looking (and READING if you made it to this point 😁); many greetings from Ticino, and have a wonderful Sunday and great start into the new week everyone! 🙏 😊 ❤

As always, let me know what you think in the comments (I hope you'll forgive me for breaking my own rule and - for once - posting a shot that I didn't take in my garden 😄).

Tags:   Western Green Lizard Lacerta Bilineata Switzerland Sony DSC-RX10M4 bilineata gogoschka Tessin Ticino svizzera suisse swiss Sony Schweiz herp Nature

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My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...

Western green lizard | Lacerta bilineata | adult male | Ticino (Switzerland) | 05-2022

More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)

My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI

In case you're interested, you'll find a less cropped version of the photo above: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...

The story behind the photo:
For the most part, I try to show photos here that come with an entertaining anecdote that my fellow Flickerites can identify with and enjoy; the world offers enough misery as it is, so my goal is to cheer you up, not to drag you down. But here for once I feel I have a responsibility to share with you what I see as a cautionary tale - and I don't blame you if you turn away now, because what follows is not a pleasant read.

But before I get into that I want to say that the year 2022 was - at least as far as my photographic endeavors were concerned - an amazing one, and I'm very grateful. It was a year of many firsts for me; I managed to produce my first acceptable bird photo; I was for the first time able to capture a roe deer as well as a swallowtail, a mantis and even a fox (which I can't wait to show you): all from within my tiny garden in Ticino.

But while there were many wonderful encounters with the fascinating creatures that share "my" vacation home and its adjacent garden with me that I was only too happy to show here, you might have noticed that the lizard species whose Latin name is my alias on Flickr and that - still - "kinda" serves as the main focus of my gallery, has been absent for a long while.

One of the reasons for holding back on new Lacerta bilineata photos is obviously that I decided to widen my focus a bit and that I now concentrate on all the species I manage to capture in my garden and its immediate surroundings.

But there is another reason I haven't uploaded any western greens this summer. Even though I shot dozens of photos of some of the most gorgeous individuals of the species I've ever seen (many of which you can also find here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... ), those were all taken on the other side of the village, and not in my garden.

The beautiful male above was in fact one of only 3 western greens I found (alive) in the vicinity of my garden between May and October in 2022 - and out of those he's the only one I was able to photograph.

So what happened? Well, a year ago the neighbor to my immediate left got a young cat, and at the same time, the neighbor to my right also adopted two kittens. Before I continue, it is important to me that you know that I myself am very much a cat person: I adore felines of any kind, and in our own household (though not at our vacation home) we've always had generations of cats, and they were and are as dear to us as our human family members.

So I have no interest in pushing any sort of "anti-cat agenda"; I'm just telling you what happened. By the time spring 2022 came around, my neighbors' cats were almost fully grown and had developed their hunting skills. Between the three of them, they killed up to a dozen western green lizards every day once the reptiles started re-emerging from their winter hiding places which is when they generally are at their most slow and vulnerable.

It was easy to count the dead lizards, because the cats didn't eat them, and whenever I was outside rarely an hour passed without one of the cats showing up with a lizard or some other animal in its mouth. They also killed most of the snakes, even the slightly longer ones at 50-70cm.

Within only a few weeks, the entire Lacerta bilineata population in and around my garden was gone, and the same was true for the population of green whip snakes, while even the number of common wall lizards, which were extremely abundant before, markedly went down during that same time period.

There had always been cats in our village, and I was aware or at least suspected that the ebb and flow of the bilineata population in the past was somewhat tied to how many cats were permanently present at any given time, but my immediate neighbors had never had cats before (which is probably why a tiny population of this protected reptile species had managed to survive around my house).

Now experiencing up close what an impact only 3 cats can have on an isolated, small reptile population was absolutely shocking. What I witnessed made me sad, but I'm not angry at the cats - nor do I hold a grudge towards my neighbors, who are kind, generous and all around lovely people.

And while I don't want to lecture anybody, what I would like to do is offer a few ideas how we as cat-lovers can help mitigate the averse effects our beloved pets' predatory nature (which is nobody's fault: least of all the cats') has on the ecosystems around our homes.

If we live in areas where there's threatened/protected species close to our homes that our cats will prey upon, the time when we let our pets out of the house can already make a huge difference. For example, western green lizards are at their most active between 8am and 11am, and not letting our cats out during that period can already increase the lizards' chance of survival.

If you're a cat lover like me but you also want to protect your local fauna, knowing when during the day birds and reptiles are the most active as well as knowing their breeding/nesting cycles is crucial, and by adjusting the times or time periods when you let your cat out of the house (or not) accordingly will make a vital difference.

But there are also simpler approaches: most reptiles and birds (which are by far the most vulnerable to hunting cats) are not active during the night. Rodents like rats and mice on the other hand very much are, so if you mostly let your cat out after sunset, it will predominantly hunt mice and rats, which are usually abundant enough that their populations aren't threatened (this at least is true for western Europe - other regions might have threatened wildlife that is active during the night, so if you do care, try to educate yourself about the creatures that will fall prey to your pet).

Cats are perfectly adapted to night activity, but they switch to more daytime activity in order to better fit the routine of "their" humans. So while our cats probably won't like it at first to have to stay indoors during the day, they will quickly adapt and accept it, as long as they know they will be able to leave the house once the sun has gone down.

Naturally, there might be practical issues involved that make it impossible to try some of the above (like the presence of coyotes who will eat your cats if they are out at night), but who knows, maybe one person or other will find some of these suggestions useful. And while it may be too late for "my" lizards, I just feel an obligation to at least try to help raise awareness on the issue (although I realize this is a touchy subject and people have strong opinions about it).

In any case, thank you so much for taking the time to read this not very pleasant text. And as always, let me know what you think of the photo in the comments below - but please refrain from making any "heated" statements regarding the issue at hand out of respect for other commenters whose feelings you might hurt (if you feel very strongly about this subject and want to "vent", you may always reach me via my Flickr Mail).

Many greetings from Switzerland and a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you!!! 🎉 😊 ❤!

Tags:   lacerta bilineata western green lizard environment fauna lézard ramarro lagarto male maschio mâle macho Männchen smaragdeidechse reptile reptiles herp herps switzerland Ticino Swiss suisse svizzera westliche smaragdeidechse lagarto verde occidental lézard vert occidental ramarro occidentale Sony DSC-RX10 Mark IV gogoschka Animals sony rx10m4 animal monteggio macro makro rx10m4 sony lacerta bilineata portrait portraits animal portrait

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Old World Swallowtail (Papilio Machaon), 04-2023, Ticino, Switzerland

My most recent bird video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvVNEYPfFtU

If you're interested, you can find my best photos here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
When I was a little boy, the butterfly in the photo above was an almost mythical creature to me. It was so rare, that I seem to remember most people I knew excitedly shouting "A SWALLOWTAIL! A SWALLOWTAIL" if they happened to spot one, and we kids would come running for a chance to see this unicorn of the insect world with our own eyes.

Granted, for 5-year old me "most people I knew" probably consisted of my parents and siblings plus a few kids and the kindergarten teacher, but what is certainly true is that unlike with more common butterflies, a visit from this elusive beauty would not go unnoticed and rarely unmentioned. The swallowtail was important - I knew that much.

A couple of years later, when I was maybe six or seven years old, I learned that the swallowtail belonged to the family of the „Ritterfalter“ (that is the German name for the Papilionidae) which translates to „knight butterflies“. Now this new knowledge really fueled my imagination: so the swallowtail was a knight!

There were only three butterfly species present in Switzerland that had been granted a knighthood - the other two being Sir Scarce Swallowtail and Sir Apollo - and since the (old world) swallowtail was the most beautiful, it was certainly the most valiant and probably sat at the head of the knights’ table; heck, in my mind it was practically the Sir Lancelot of the butterfly world!

Now you might chuckle at the notion that this insect - which may seem like "just another butterfly" to people who live in countries with a large and colorful insect fauna - made this much of an impression on me. But such exotic looking creatures (ANY exotic looking animals) were practically non-existent where I lived.

I grew up in a very rural area of Switzerland outside the city of Zurich during the late seventies and eighties, and although things would get worse in the 90s (before they got better in the 2000s with the boom of organic farming), intense agriculture had already taken a terrible toll on the biodiversity of the open grass land around our little village.

Most crucially for the swallowtail, the once abundant wild carrot - which is the plant the caterpillars of Papilio machaon most commonly feed on in northern Switzerland - had nearly disappeared from our fields and meadows, so the species relied on fennel and carrot plants in private vegetable gardens for its survival. Sadly, those were few and far between, and by the time I grew up, the swallowtail had gone all but extinct in our area.

My desperate attempts to help it out and lure it into our garden (well, mom did all the work by planting carrot seeds at my insistence) remained futile; regardless how meticulously I searched every plant, to my great disappointment I never found a single caterpillar nor even so much as a tiny swallowtail egg.

But there was one place where I could rely on encountering this rarest and most gorgeous of butterflies - and also many other fantastical creatures that were the stuff of legend for the little nature nerd I was (well, I guess still am 😊 ). This was a magical place that lay on the other side of a gigantic mountain, and it could only be accessed through a dark tunnel that would go on for miles and miles and miles (ten, to be exact).

One could enter in winter and come out in spring; on one side there might be snow several feet high while on the other side warm sunshine would illuminate lush green fields that, after a further 30-minutes drive in the family car, would give way to gardens with palm trees.

This was a fantasy land from a fairy tale, where people grew peaches and lemons and figs in their gardens, giant beetles grew antlers like stags, snakes grew to a length of six feet, and colorful lizards basked on the walls of peculiar and ancient looking little stone houses, while exotic seeming insects and spiders (and even scorpions) populated the fields and forests.

This place (as you might have guessed) wasn't Hogwarts: it was Ticino, the Italian speaking southern part of Switzerland. And since it lay on the other side of the Alps, we would usually drive through the 10-mile (16.9 kilometers) Gotthard road tunnel to get there, and it was indeed quite common that there would still be snow covering the north entry in early March, while on the southern end of the tunnel spring had already arrived.

I knew that this land of seemingly endless sunshine was where my grandparents had grown up, but to little-boy me it might as well have been Hogwarts (although the Harry Potter books obviously hadn't yet been written back then 😉 ). Driving to Ticino through this endless appearing tunnel was nothing short of a trip to another world.

What further added to the magic was that our vacation home was a several-hundred year old "rustico" (that's what the ancient, traditionally built stone houses are called in Ticino) that was located like some long forgotten stronghold in the midst of a wild, jungle-like forest in a remote area of the Verzasca valley. The place - which belonged to my uncle (who never went there) - was completely off-grid and had its own power supply from solar panels on the roof and fresh water from a nearby spring.

With no neighbors around that we could bother - and armed with a deep trust in fate (which was kinda typical for the "baby-boomer" generation) that we kids would neither fall from a cliff, drown in the river, get bitten by a venomous snake, get lost in the woods, NOR go feral and start a savage little Lord-Of-The-Flies style cult - our parents let us roam free.

To me this meant I went exploring the untamed nature around me for as long as there was daylight. I wanted to know and see every creature that lived in the area; it was like going on a gemstone hunt. And the bounty would always be plentiful: there were snakes and lizards and stag beetles and mantises and giant caterpillars of hawk moths to be found, but the big price - the crown jewel if you will - was the swallowtail.

For here the "winged knight" still ruled supreme, and even though it didn't exist in large numbers, I would always find at least one a day on some little meadow in the forest. Because swallowtails are so much bigger than the more common butterflies, I could easily spot it from afar, and just like the one in the photo above (taken in my garden in Ticino this past spring), I would usually find Sir Papilio Machaon sipping nectar from the flowers of red clover.

These swallowtail hunts in the wild Verzasca valley were marvelous adventures (though in hindsight they were probably more than just a little dangerous), and to this day they're among my favorite childhood memories.

A lot has changed in the nearly forty years that have since gone by; parents who let their kids roam free all day long in untamed forests are certainly a thing of the past in Switzerland (my own generation seems to have a hard time letting their kids go ANYwhere unsupervised - except perhaps for the internet 😉 ). But what has remained the same is my fascination with these gorgeous insects.

And there's some good news: I'm happy to report that the swallowtail has bounced back a little in many parts of northern Switzerland. It's still one of the rarest butterflies, but nowadays I consistently find the cute, characteristically striped caterpillars on the carrot plants in my parents' vegetable garden year after year, and every once in a while I'm even greeted by a "winged knight" in person when I take a stroll across the fields and meadows of my youth.

As for Ticino; well, I now have my own little house there (also a "rustico", but in the less remote Malcantone region) with a tiny garden attached, and every year I make sure to do everything in my power to accommodate Sir (or Dame) Swallowtail on my premises (also read: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/post/how-to-attract-a-swallowta... - and with great success I might add :-)

During the warmer months, this gorgeous Papilionidae species regales me with its knightly presence nearly every day, and I still make a run for my camera each time I get a visit - even though Sir Lancelot of the butterfly world is a nightmare to photograph.

Knighthood or not, this is one nervous fella that constantly jumps and flutters around on the flowers he likes to visit, which tends to drive a certain (now fully grown) nature nerd and wannabe-photographer to the brink of insanity on a regular basis.

Thankfully though, by now my neighbors are used to the (embarrassingly frequent) frustrated shouts and bouts of swearing coming from my garden (I imagine them just rolling their eyes and saying: "Great, there's a butterfly in his garden again..." 😂 ).

And with this (as always far too lengthy) anecdote I'll leave you for now and say goodbye to 2023:

😊❤🎉💕 - HAPPY NEW YEAR my friends!!! - 😊❤🎉💕

All the best - and the best of light - to you in 2024 and beyond! And as always: let me know what you think in the comments (even though it will take me a while to respond, but I promise I will). 🙏 😊 ❤

Tags:   Papilio machaon Old World Swallowtail Schwalbenschwanz Switzerland Nature Sony DSC-RX10M4 Ticino animal animals bilineata gogoschka insect lacerta lacerta bilineata macro makro Malcantone Monteggio rx10m4 Schweiz Sony Sony DSC-RX10 Mark IV sony rx10m4 suisse svizzera swiss Tessin Butterflies butterfly schmetterling papillon lepidottero farfalla insecto Insects insekt insetto mariposa macaon macaone machaon suiza swallowtail

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My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...

Monteggio, Ticino (Switzerland), May 2021

My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI

You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.

I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.

But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.

It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.

I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.

Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).

Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.

No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.

Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).

But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.

And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.

Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.

Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.

As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊

Tags:   Ticino Switzerland horses fog mist monochrome black and white sepia sony dsc-rx10m4 gogoschka Lacerta Bilineata BRAVO Animals sony rx10m4 animal lacerta bilineata schwarzweiss b/n n/b monteggio cavallo pferd cheval caballo nebel brouillard nebbia rx10m4 sony

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My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...

Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa Violacea) & Flower Crab Spider (Misumena Vatia) on iris

More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)

My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI

ABOUT THE PHOTO:

When I look at my (far too) tiny gallery of photos, it's hard not to note the fact that there is an abundance of green - and very little else colorwise. It's not that I don't have other photos with slightly more color variation, but I started out here a year ago with the idea of dedicating my entire Flickr page exclusively to the western green lizard (Lacerta bilineata), because that's also the main focus of my website of the same name.

But just as with the site - which now has an entire page dedicated to other fauna from the Lacerta bilineata habitat - I realized that it's more fun to present all the creatures big and small I find in my garden and its immediate surroundings. I still will continue to upload many more photos of my favorite green reptile, but it's variation that makes the world (and my garden) interesting, and the same goes for my Flickr gallery. I thought this gorgeous iris with its yellow and violet tones would fit nicely between all the green, and the two arthropods it hosts are both very typical residents of the Lacerta bilineata habitat.

The carpenter bee is obviously too much of a whopper of a meal for this tiny male flower crab spider (and it also comes with a sting ;-), and I guess if this were a cartoon you'd see a very relieved spider face and a huge "Thank you Lord!* in the speech bubble above it because this "Behemoth" of a bee landed on the other side of that iris :-) . But the carpenter bee might have gotten lucky too that it didn't meet the dwarf's old lady: female flower crab spiders are notorious for attacking and overwhelming much bigger prey than themselves, and although I haven't seen one catching a carpenter bee yet, I definitely wouldn't rule it out.

ABOUT THE SPECIES (from Wikipedia):

XYLOCOPA VIOLACEA is the common European species of carpenter bee, and one of the largest bees in Europe. It is also native to Asia. Like most members of the genus Xylocopa, it makes its nests in dead wood. It is not particularly aggressive, and will attack only if forced to.

These bees hibernate over winter and re-emerge in spring, usually around April or May. Hibernation is undertaken by the adults in wood where there are abandoned nest tunnels. In late spring or early summer, they may be seen around searching for mates and suitable nesting sites. After mating, the gravid females bore tunnels in dead wood, which is where the name "carpenter bee" comes from, although old nest tunnels may be used.

Like other solitary bees, the female creates the nest alone. The eggs are laid within a series of small cells, each of which is supplied with a pollen ball for the larvae to feed upon. The adults emerge in late summer then hibernate until the following year

MISUMENA VATIA is a species of crab spider with a holarctic distribution. They are called crab spiders because of their unique ability to walk sideways as well as forwards and backwards.

Females can grow up to 10 mm (0.39 in) while males are quite small, reaching 5 mm (0.20 in) at most. Younger females especially, which may hunt on a variety of flowers such as daisies and sunflowers, have a strong tendency to adapt to the color of the surrounding flower. However, the color-changing process is not instant and can require up to 25 days to complete.

Misumena vatia feed on common insects, often consuming prey much larger than themselves. They use venom to immobilize their prey, though they are harmless to humans.

Greetings to all of you, stay heathly and safe and have a wonderful weekend!

Tags:   sony dsc-rx10m4 gogoschka Lacerta Bilineata Xylocopa violacea Misumena vatia Animals Insects Spiders sony rx10m4 insect animal tessin ticino switzerland schweiz monteggio suisse svizzera carpenter bee rx10m4 sony macro makro Flower iris

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